Halloween Haunts: In Search of Ghosts and Happy Haunts
by Cecilia Kennedy
I once entered a haunted saloon in town, sometime around Halloween.
But nothing really happened.
I drank a beer. It was good—cold, refreshing—everything I’d hoped a beer would be, but I was expecting something otherworldly, based on the lore and legends on the restaurant’s website.
The Oxford Saloon, established in 1900 in Snohomish, Washington, is famously haunted—all documented online. And I believe it all: ghostly sightings of women who worked in the bordello on the second floor, a policeman who died when a fight broke out at a card table, and disembodied voices.
On the night I was there, I sat at the bar while a band played. There’s always music without a cover charge, so it’s hard to get a seat. I was lucky. But as far as hauntings went? The most I felt was the urge to dance. There was too much living going on for anything dead to lurk, so I turned to the bartender and said, “Hey, I heard this place was haunted.”
She smiled and said, “Ah, that’s just the ghost of Henry downstairs by the restroom. He likes to pinch the ladies, but he means no harm.”
It almost felt like a dare. Like I should walk right past the bathrooms nearby and go out of my way to get pinched downstairs, but that wasn’t quite the haunting I wanted. Just maybe a wisp of something slipping from the shadows. A story to tell later, but I didn’t have one—not from there.
And what horror writer goes home empty handed? It just isn’t right.
But then, I remember another story. It takes place in a small town in Ohio, where my son was born, and where my husband and I bought our first house. It was a very unforgiving house. When we went to replace the countertops, they wouldn’t budge. When I parked my car in the driveway, air seeped out from all four tires overnight—without slash marks or obvious punctures. It was almost like this house never really wanted us to be there, but that was silly, we thought. Houses, places, don’t always have a choice.
Over the course of our first year in that house, I felt “watched.” Like something was peeking over my shoulder, and I’d turn, to find nothing. Later, I discovered that the place where we were living was called “the divorce house.” Every married couple who lived there split up, including the couple from whom we’d bought the house. I could definitely see how this stubborn, unsettling place could potentially rip apart even the best of intentions to stay united. To stay strong.
Even when I was pregnant, I felt the house shift in mood and presence. We were move-ins, outsiders. And now there would be another.
They say you’re finally accepted in a place when you look like you’re going to put down roots, and a swelling stomach at the beginning of the second trimester is one way to show you’re serious. It’s like the house sensed it. The creepy feeling hovered, and I worried about the baby.
“I don’t know why you should be concerned,” my doctor had told me. “You’re having a normal pregnancy. Most births are uneventful.”
But, born a month early, my son was one of very few infants to experience severe gastrointestinal bleeding. Three blood transfusions and ten days in the NICU at the local children’s hospital later, he lived. He was ours, and I brought him home, to the house.
One night, instead of crying in his sleep, he laughed. I couldn’t help myself. I tiptoed into his room, trying to go unnoticed, but he turned his head, so I picked him up and bounced him in my arms. My eyes had adjusted to the lack of light. He continued to laugh, reaching for something beyond my shoulder. I turned by head, but saw nothing. In the dim light, I watched his eyes. They were tracking something. So, I turned my body—and his eyes followed something just beyond my shoulders. Every which way I turned, he grabbed at something—delighted by what he saw. I thought maybe he was playing with shadows or falling dust particles, but even when I turned away from light and shadows, he reached.
And I was done. Done with the house. Done with whatever dared to make my son laugh, though I couldn’t be too upset. He was laughing, after all.
So I made a deal with the something I believed was very real: “Stay away from my baby. Please don’t keep him up at night,” I said, “and we’ll leave your home. We’re not ready to go yet, but we do plan on moving out, and when we do, you can help by getting this house sold quickly.”
The house went quiet. I didn’t have that peeking-over-the-shoulder feeling anymore. My son was safe and happy—and walking on his own by Halloween.
Eventually, we moved. The house sold fast, to someone who was born in that town—and probably welcomed by the house with open arms.
The ghost, who kept my son up at night, was the first ghost I ever wrote about in my first published flash fiction piece, “Hello.” She’s not evil, I don’t think. Just can’t resist a baby.
And the baby? All grown up now, in his twenties. He’s fun to go “ghost hunting” with. Sometimes we think we feel a chill in the air in certain old houses. In antique stores, we have to see the creepy dolls section. But nothing really speaks to us, beckons, or calls.
If I hear there’s a rumor that a place is haunted, I might check it out, but I rarely experience anything. It doesn’t mean there isn’t a story that haunts me. Doesn’t mean I don’t have my favorite haunts.
Author bio: Cecilia Kennedy (she/her) taught English composition and Spanish in Ohio for 20 years before moving to Washington state with her family. Since 2017, she has published her stories in international literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. She earned a Pushcart nomination in 2023. Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, Coffin Bell, Idle Ink, Tiny Molecules, Streetcake Magazine, Molotov Cocktail, Rejection Letters, Open Minds Quarterly, Headway Quarterly, Flash Fiction Magazine, Kandisha Press, Ghost Orchid Press, and others. Her short story collections include The Places We Haunt (DarkWinter Press) and Twenty-Four-Hour Shift: Dark Tales from on and off the Clock (DarkWinter/Press). Additionally, she’s the adult beverages columnist for The Daily Drunk, a social media editor for Literary Mama, a proofreader and editor for Flash Fiction Magazine, and a concept editor for Running Wild Press.
Instagram: @ceciliakennedy2349
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Blog: Fixin’ Leaks ‘n Leeks: https://fixinleaksnleeksdiy.blog/
Portfolio/Website: https://ckennedyhola.wixsite.com/ckennedyportfolio